Gutta Percha Company
The company started making this type of cable in 1848 and it rapidly became their main product, on which it developed a near-monopoly.
The world's first international telegraph connection under the sea, a link from Dover to Calais in 1851, used a cable made by the company.
It was brought to attention in Europe by William Montgomerie, a Scottish surgeon of the East India Company in Singapore where the trees from which the material is obtained are native.
Montgomerie sent samples to the Society of Arts in London in 1843 with the idea that the material could be used for medical apparatus.
A partner in the company, Thomas Hancock, passed samples to his brother Charles who was trying to invent a new bottle stopper made from cemented ground cork.
[7] The range of products was soon greatly expanded, and included machine belts, shoe soles, and toys.
The resulting seam in the insulation was to prove problematic for underwater cables as it provided a route for the ingress of water.
[9] Gutta-percha made possible practical submarine telegraph cables because it was both waterproof and resistant to seawater as well as being thermoplastic.
The dispute resulted in Hancock leaving and setting up the rival West Ham Gutta Percha Company.
[12] The first order for gutta-percha electrical cable came in 1848 from the South Eastern Railway for a 2-mile (3.2 km) length for experiment.
Undeterred, the company placed a new order in 1850, but this time the cable was to be sent to a wire rope manufacturer for armouring before laying.
[17] His company, Siemens & Halske, then laid underground gutta-percha cables extensively around Germany, including one that crossed the Rhine in 1849.
[23] The quality of gutta-percha, as supplied by the Gutta Percha Company,[24] was extensively discussed by Charles Bright in his book Submarine Telegraphs.
[31] For this reason, these sections of cable were protected with an additional layer of another material such as India rubber.
The material supplied for the Siemens cables by the Gutta Percha Company had a high sulphur content.
